Somebody Please

...this guy is an abscess that's been allowed to fester on the ass of humankind for way too long. Could we just get it drained and disinfected already?

Big Twitter thing today was the Voter ID crap got smooshed in North Carolina.

Federal appellate judges on Friday struck down a 2013 law limiting voting options and requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls, declaring in an unsparing opinion that the restrictions “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

The three-judge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the law was adopted with “discriminatory intent” despite lawmakers’ claims that the ID provision and other changes were designed to prevent voter fraud.

The ruling – which could have implications for voting laws in other states and possibly for the outcome of close races in the swing state of North Carolina – sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder, who in April issued a 485-page decision dismissing all claims in the legal challenge.

“In holding that the legislature did not enact the challenged provisions with discriminatory intent, the court seems to have missed the forest in carefully surveying the many trees,” the ruling states. “This failure of perspective led the court to ignore critical facts bearing on legislative intent, including the inextricable link between race and politics in North Carolina.”

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article92593512.html#storylink=cpy

The God Bidness

Today's Tweet

Wherein a draft dodger calls a 4 star general a failure. Really @GOP ? This is who the American people should trust? pic.twitter.com/zrRznb50iV

— Krystle J (@Iacoguy) July 29, 2016

Bill Maher

Tempting

The north Carolina GOP decided to pitch a bit of a hissy fit because of what they tho't was a horrible Democrat doing something horrible to "their" America".

Here's a screenshot of that @NCGOP tweet about @timkaine, since they deleted it. #DemsInPhilly pic.twitter.com/LbAywwnnob

— Ben Amey (@BenAmeyTV) July 28, 2016

That's the story, but it's not really the story.

I think it happens too often for it not to be a Dirty-Tricks thing.  You make a charge about some made-up bullshit, which is intended to reinforce the negative image of the Democrat Libtards because of all the other made-up bullshit that's been installed like firmware in "conservative" brains for 35 years - it's not true, and you know it's not true, and you know it doesn't matter. It only matters that you get it into the consciousness stream.  The rubes are already conditioned to take on whatever negative shit you feed 'em so you put it out there, and if you get slapped down, then you can issue the basic non-corrective corrective or whatever, knowing that the thing has already taken root and has passed into the body of GOP lore about rotten Democrats, and the rubes will never go back and look for any kind of retraction or rebuttal.

And the other point is that you don't see that shit - not anything rising anywhere near that level anyway - coming from the Dems.

Today's Quote

Vanity Fair Hive

“Democracy is a little bit messy sometimes,” he told reporters at a breakfast convened by Bloomberg News. “You know, I grew up in a family where I got yelled at a whole lot. It doesn’t make me nervous.”

Bernie Sanders is a mensch.

Today's Tweet

the Internet is a magical place pic.twitter.com/TcF5Zt08AF

— Ziwe (@ziwe) July 26, 2016

That Thing That Isn't Really

New Republic:

Wikileaks’s tweets conjured dark and menacing conspiracies, but these are not borne out by the emails themselves. Take the group’s claim that the “DNC knew of Hillary paid troll factory attacking Sanders online.” The highlighted email isn’t some secret communication laying out nefarious plots. It’s a summary of a panel discussion on Fox News Sunday.

But forget the emails for a second. The main problem with the notion that the DNC rigged the results for Clinton is that it requires one to assume the improbable. The DNC had no role or authority in primary contests, which are run by state governments. Clinton dominated the primaries. The DNC, through state parties, had a bit more influence over caucuses … where Sanders dominated Clinton.

None of the thousands of leaked emails and documents show the DNC significantly influencing the results of the nomination. Furthermore, if it is true that last fall Clinton campaign chair John Podesta tried but failed to have DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz sacked, the underlying premise of the entire WikiLeaks dump—that Wasserman Schultz machinated to deliver Clinton the nomination—is hard to believe.

So, yeah - bad news for the DNC Truthers, except that truthers usually believe the conspiracy no matter what.  Not that this one's anywhere near the weirdnesses of JFK or 9/11 - there is some little bit of substance to this - but then again, that's always the case, and it's also always the case that once it's in the bloodstream it prob'ly won't be going away any time soon.

The handful of (known) emails so far, indicate to me something along the lines of: tired staffers who hit the hotel a little late, and about halfway thru their 3rd mini-bar scotch are suddenly seized by the revelation that they possess the most amazing political chops, and they're having such a flood of genius ideas they just have to share them ASAP, so they fire off a few brainstorm emails etc etc etc.  You tell them to knock off the shit; you discipline them; you fire them; you force them out - kinda like what happened.

What I'm really not shocked about: Democrats "conspiring" to nominate a Democrat.  C'mon, guys.

Ted Talks Donald

Well That Explains A Lot

I've spent some time calling "the GOP base" a lotta names.  Sorry not sorry.

One of my favorites has always been "Whiny-Butt Pussies" because seriously, when you listen to what they say - and to what their candidates and media darlings have to say - they're afraid of practically everything.

Immigrants and POC and Trade Deals and not having 37 guns (and believing they'll need lotsa guns to protect themselves from the hippies? wtf?) etc etc etc.  

Anyway, you name it, they're scared of it.

So it shouldn't have come as any kinda shock to me when they picked Donald Trump as their POTUS nominee, but I was pretty shocked.  I guess maybe I figured I was just indulging in a little name-calling, thinking I'd be cute and clever, but that deep down they weren't really that bad and I was just having some fun tweaking them. 

Oops.

So I was right all along(?)  Cuz Trump is pretty obviously the epitome of the Whiny-Butt Pussy (at least he plays it that way) - why would they not  pick him?

Like Alice, I give myself plenty of good advice - and it seems I'm always kinda lost anyway.

Donald and Vlad

From Charlie Pierce:

In brief: In his business dealings, He, Trump seems increasingly dependent on money from Russia and from the former Soviet republics within its increasingly active sphere of influence. This is because most of the big banks on this side of the pond won't go near him without HazMat suits. (Gee, could it be that his sudden emergence as a Warren-esque crusader against the "rigged system" of the banksters is less of a principled opposition and simply pure animal vengeance? Unpossible!) As Marshall points out, this isn't exactly a deep corporate secret, as The Washington Post explained:

Trump has conveyed a different view, informed in part through his business ambitions. Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world. "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets," Trump's son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."

So maybe now we have a slightly better idea of what's in those tax returns Trump doesn't want us to see?

Today's Chart

Which is actually another tweet, but anyway - be reassured, but don't be happy and don't get cocky.  GOTV and put as many Blues in office as possible.

CLINTON still leads in our polls-plus model, which adjusts for Trump's convention bounce. https://t.co/zo8rbYw56E pic.twitter.com/J0G2D5PHxK

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 25, 2016

John Oliver

Worth Noting

Es la economía, estúpido

Today's Tweet

Look, it says it right here in the Declaration of Independence:

"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Hat Penis." pic.twitter.com/DjpGl39Uay

— JB4Realz (@JB4Realz) July 22, 2016

Worth Considering

The more we convince ourselves that it's a big scary world; that we live in a country falling into lawlessness and chaos; that the system is corrupt; that there's danger at every turn -- the more we allow ourselves to be spooked (for good reason or otherwise), the more likely we are to be stampeded into the arms of whoever is running as the Daddy-State-Law-n-Order candidate.  Sound familiar?

I'm not saying everything's peachy - don't gimme that False Dichotomy bullshit - I am going to say that when things aren't as good as they should be, there's change in the air and politicians can smell it, and they'll pimp that up in order to get the crowd moving so they can shift power from one thing or person to some other thing or person. This is about power because it's always about power.

So at the risk of putting myself up for Mr Wishy-Washy: some things are OK but not nearly as good as they oughta be, while some things are pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as some politicians (and their surrogates and their fans) need us to believe they are. 

The real point is that we've been here before.

So let's try a little harder not fuck it up this time.

Today's Pix

Oops

Tim Kaine has been praising the Trans Pacific Partnership and has been pushing hard to get it approved. Job killer!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2016

Trade means jobs, but trade also means security. The time has come for all of us to urge the swift adoption of the Trans Pacific Partnership

— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) September 8, 2014

So yeah, OK, Pence's tweet was a coupla years ago, and maybe he's changed his mind, and maybe pixies will fly outa my ass and make the world conform to the liking of a rich legacy fuck like Donald Trump.

The guy has no sense of anything but his own instant gratification. 

hat tip = Politicus

America Was Great?

Today's Quote